


Savior

by Kahvi



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-28
Updated: 2010-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 06:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just who is the Rimmer we see in <i>Back to Earth</i>? This story attempts to give some answers.</p><p>When returning after years of being Ace, Rimmer was prepared that there may be new additions to the crew. What he wasn't quite prepared for was meeting <i>himself</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Savior

Arnold Judas - currently "Ace" - Rimmer was not in the best of moods. Of course, he told himself sternly, he had only himself to blame. When his shipboard computer had notified him of the dimensional signature of the lifeforms on the vessel they had been passing, he should have just let it go. Certainly, when the vessel itself had been identified, he should have dragged his bacofoiled ass off elsewhere, leaving them to solve whichever problems they had that had landed them this far from home. Still, being Ace carried with it an implied contract. You got the fame, the adoration, the girls (and rather often, admittedly, the boys), but you paid for it by actually having to be the hero those people believed you to be, even if every cowardly, self-preserving bone in your body resisted it. A hero didn't just leave people to fend for themselves.

Even people with whom you shared a… complicated past.

No, all in all, Rimmer had not had a choice in making contact. He should not blame himself for hailing the blasted wreck and giving a pathetically fawning Kryten the full Ace treatment. What he could and fully did, however, was blame himself for the ridiculous conclusions he had dared himself to draw from the conversation that followed.

"Oh, Mister Ace, sir," the mechanoid had spluttered, "everyone will be so pleased to see you. Mister Lister, especially!"

"Is that so?"

"Absolutely, sir! Why, he's been talking about you non-stop these past few months. 'Ace' this and 'Ace' that; it's like someone flashed his BIOS and installed an infinite loop in lieu of an operating system!"

"Really?" Rimmer's mind had reeled with dangerous implications. Dangerous for a reason, he chided himself now.

"I'll run off right away and tell him you're here!"

And so, Rimmer had proceeded to dock smoothly with the ancient ship – something he had worked at quite hard, thank you very much, so that he no longer fumbled his way in like a virgin trying to find the right hole. He fought to keep his hands steady as he opened the Wildfire's hatch, stepping out. When his feet hit the hangar bay deck, Rimmer had been disgusted to find he was actually shaking. His mouth had been dry; the dratted simulated body never failing to copy every tedious aspect of the human condition. He'd heard footsteps, running. Then…

Lister had been naked. Stark naked, save for a pair of oddly familiar boxers that had been pulled on the wrong way 'round, and one dirty-gray sock, freckled with the ghosts of impossible to wash out curry stains. Just standing there, panting for breath, his eyes big and brown and belying the age his body claimed to be. They'd been set on Rimmer, but Rimmer had not been looking at them. He'd been looking over Lister's shoulder, at the tall, sheet-clad mirror image of himself, whose nostrils flared in confused condescension. At that point, Rimmer had realized why the boxers Lister was wearing seemed so familiar; they were his. Or had been his, back when he was alive, and as reedy as the brylcreemed twonk now glaring back at him.

So, all in all, Rimmer wasn't happy, but neither was he surprised. After all, who else but Arnold Judas Rimmer, Ace or not, would lose out to himself?

 

* * *

 

Considering that Blue Midget's midsection could easily be crowded by a single person, its current occupancy of six was certainly pushing the limits. Lister was wedged up against the wall behind a preening Cat; the door to the cockpit whirred open now and then, its proximity sensors whining in confusion. Everyone seemed to want a piece of Ace - everyone except the other Rimmer, who was scowling at him suspiciously from behind a mug of Horlics. Said mug had been provided by a dithering Kryten, who kept interrupting every two minutes to ask if Mister Ace would like any refreshments, only they didn't have much, but if there was anything he wanted, anything at all, Kryten would do his utmost to… and so on and so on. It was all Rimmer could do to keep his Ace act up during that sort of onslaught, much less remember the details of the story he was relating to – ah, yes – the lovely Ms. Kochanski.

A clearly alternate version of Lister's lost love being on board the ship was not quite so mind-boggling as Lister chosing to bed a younger, scrawnier, inexplicably living version of Rimmer when there was Kochanski to be had. Judging by the looks Lister were throwing their way though, it was obvious where his true preference lay. It never failed to surprise Rimmer how easily women fell under Ace's swaggering spell. Kochanski was listening, spellbound, as he related how he'd single-handedly cured a highly advanced GELF tribe of their genetically enforced sterility.

"But an entire population," she breathed for what seemed like the thirtieth time; "an entire race of people! You saved them from extinction!"

"All in a day's work, my delightful carnation."

"If I called ya that, you would've slapped me down," Lister protested, accepting a mug of something or other from Kryten, who didn't seem to know what to do with himself.

"Don't be silly, Dave; you'd never call me anything that." Kochanski played with the edge of Rimmer's flight suit lapels, apparently unaware of what her fingers were doing. Rimmer tried to keep his face from twitching.

"I might," Lister offered, subtly changing tactics.

"You don't even know what a carnation is."

"Some sort of… flower?"

"You shagged half the population of a planet in a day?" Cat sidled up, squeezing himself between Rimmer and Kochanski, who dropped the lapels, and looked at her hand with some amount of confusion. "Man, that's something even _I_ couldn't have done!" His eyes glittered in time with his incisors. Rimmer tried to back away, but the room wouldn't allow for it.

"Not exactly, my feline friend. As I'm sure you know, the various species of GELFs are examples of engineered interordinal genetic hybrids. While capable of sexual activity with almost any placental mammal, Cats included," he winked, "they are not capable of actual reproduction with any being but their own kind."

"Of course," Cat shot back, without blinking.

"These poor chaps were out of luck even there, I'm afraid. Bit of a problem with the chromosomerooskis."

"Oh yes," Kochanski exclaimed, elbowing a protesting Cat out of the way, "it's obvious, when I think about it! With that diversity of genomes, there are bound to be adverse interactions, because each of the genes in each genome must be compatible with all the genes in the others!"

 _Obvious?_ Of course it wasn't obvious! Certainly not to Rimmer, who was merely sprouting what the Wildfire's computer was patiently feeding him via its uplink to his bee. The ship's database contained the collected wisdom and experiences of all previous Aces, available at an instant. Rimmer's own contributions had been minimal, except in the areas of vending-machine repair, scheduling and vintage roadside erections, none of which were usually mission-critical. Biting back the snarky reply he felt on the edge of his tongue, Rimmer let the uplink guide him through the rest of the conversation, interspersing his actual memories of performing the gene therapy that had saved the tribe. Of course, he'd just been following the uplink's suggestions then, too. So much of being Ace was a puppet show, with himself as the puppet and a sentient computer and the ghost of a long-dead actual hero as the puppeteers.

"I… don't suppose you'd consider walking me to my room?" Kochanski asked shyly. "We could… talk more."

Rimmer half-smiled. After all, that was all part of the puppet show, too.

 

* * *

 

"…and that's when I realized that, all along, I'd been playing the overture to 'Siegfried', when everyone else was playing the overture to 'Götterdämmerung'!" Kochanski laughed, in that nervous, faux-innocent way Rimmer particularly hated. Whenever anyone did it, he was always reminded of the first princess he'd been forced to rescue, and the horrifying things she'd done to him when he got her back to the ship. His eyebrow twitched, involuntarily.

"I hate when that happens," he assured her, coughing politely. It had taken less than a minute for them to reach the little curtained-off nook she called 'her quarters'. They were now lingering outside, Kochanski clearly unwilling to make the first move, while Rimmer, for his part, had not entirely decided what he should do if that move was made. Certainly, shagging her would hurt Lister, and Rimmer was all for that, under the circumstances. On the other hand, one of the things Rimmer had been forced to admit to himself in his life as Ace was that when it came to shagging, he much preferred the company of men. Furthermore, in as much as he had a type when it came to women, Kohcanski was as far away from it as Lister was from the idea of enjoying a nice, organic tofu salad.

"So anyway," Kochanski interrupted his musings, "that's what made me decide that life in the symphony orchestra wasn't for me."

Rimmer nodded. He hadn't really been paying attention, and hoped she wouldn't ask him anything that would require remembering which instrument she had been playing.

"I'm sorry," she looked away, blushing. "I'm rambling, rather. I tend to do that when I'm nervous. Which doesn't happen a lot these days. It's just… you remind me so much of Dave."

"Lister?!" Rimmer spluttered, nearly dropping out of the Ace-voice.

"Oh!" Kochanski laughed. "Oh no, not _that_ Dave. _My_ Dave."

" _Your_ Dave?"

"The Dave in my dimension. We were a couple."

"A _couple?_ " The voice definitely slipped that time. Thankfully, Kochanski didn't seem to notice.

"Yes. I expect you find that rather odd."

"Oh, not at all," Rimmer managed, struggling to keep up his fake grin.

"Us being so different, I mean. Well, _my_ Dave wasn't… isn't like that. I suppose he started out that way, but, well, he was a hologram, you see. And it rather changed his perspective on things."

"I've heard it often does."

"He realized that if he wanted things to work out between us, he needed to make some changes. And he did, he really did; he worked so hard at it, poor thing. He even found a way to iron his shirts while he was still incorporeal. Made sure to have Holly keep his hair trimmed, and always kept his room tidy."

" _His_ room?"

"Yes, and he was a perfect gentleman, even after he got the hard light bee and could…" she waggled her eyebrows in a rather disturbing manner, "you know; he didn't try anything. Not until I explicitly told him it was OK."

Rimmer didn't quite know how to respond. One could say many things about Lister's various alternates – and Rimmer had a met a fair few of them – but potential molesters they were not. "Jolly decent of him, I'm sure." He was starting to get an inkling why she was telling him all this. As Ace, Rimmer had met one or two women (and more than a few men) who had felt the need to explain, in detail, why it was OK for them to cheat on their respective partners before commencing to snog his tonsils out of his throat. Of course, Rimmer didn't give a toss; he wasn't responsible for other people's broken relationships.

"I'm afraid I keep comparing Dave – this Dave, I mean – unfavorably to him all too often. It's hardly fair to him... I don't know why I'm telling you all this…"

 _I do,_ Rimmer thought to himself.

"…but, well, I suppose it's sort of a defense mechanism. Before I left my dimension, things weren't going that well between Dave and I."

 _Dave and ME_ Rimmer corrected, internally. The scales were tipping thoroughly in favor of 'not shagging' now.

"We'd drifted apart rather… he just didn't seem like the same person I fell in love with. And it's not as if I'll see him again, and, well, the Dave that's here is just so… so…" She smiled, apologetically.

Rimmer sighed. So, in other words, the boyfriend she had carefully manipulated into changing every aspect of himself to please her, was no longer the thrillingly proletarian slob she'd fallen for originally, and now, here was an unchanged version of him that she, for reasons unfathomable to her, felt strangely attracted to. Weren't relationships wonderful? Ah well, on with the show. "So there's no chance that you and I…" he did his best to mimic her earlier eye-movements.

"Oh!" she giggled disturbingly like a schoolgirl. "Oh no, that wouldn't do. Not with… everything."

"I'm sure you're right, my dear. No need to complicate things."

 _Far too late for that,_ he added, mentally, as Kochanski retreated behind her curtain with a thankful smile.

 

* * *

 

Blue Midget did have one set of actual crew quarters, and these had been offered to Ace as a matter of course (by Kryten, before anyone else could jump in). Knowing that the regular occupants would have to be Lister and his Rimmerine stud-muffin, however, Rimmer had politely declined. He didn't actually need much sleep, but he did need some time by himself to think, and so he headed back to the docking bay, by way of the central corridor. Given the size of the ship, he was unsurprised to meet his younger self along the way, but surprise did register when the other fellow refused to yield, continuing to step in front of him, clearing his throat exaggeratedly.

"Did you want something?" Rimmer snapped, finally. The Ace-veneer was wearing thin, and he was getting too tired to care. Dangerous, that.

"Look," the younger Rimmer began, "I just wanted to let you know… to assure you that… what you saw… might have seen… what you may have thought you might have seen, or might have inferred had occurred…"

"Are you talking about you and Dave shagging?"

" _I'm not gay!_ " the younger Rimmer yelped.

"Oh, snap out of it, Arn! Of _course_ you're gay. I should know; I'm you!"

"No you're not; you're some swutting space-hero, drowning in praise and awash in women! You've never been stuck on a lander with a grotty excuse for a man with no sense of personal space and dubious personal hygiene!"

"You'd be surprised."

"It's not what you think. If you're a Rimmer, you went to the same school I did. I know you've heard the stories; what happens to men when they're cooped up together for too long."

"Arn…"

" _Strange_ things; unnatural things. And you can't help it; it's not your fault. It's just the sort of thing that happens between guys sometimes. Anyway, he started it."

"Arn, I honestly could not care less."

"But we're the same basic template," the younger Rimmer insisted. "If I'm gay, you're gay. Don't you care?"

"I _am_ gay, you goit. Now will you _please_ let me pass?"

"You honestly don't care that you're gay?"

Rimmer took a deep breath. He could easily elbow his way past, but that wouldn't be very Ace-like. Then again, he wasn't sure how much Ace there was left in him right now. "I honestly, honestly don't. Now let me pass, pretty please?"

A strange transformation came over the figure blocking his way. The younger Rimmer's face grew very still, then very, very pale. His entire body stiffened, and for a moment, Rimmer saw, in those terrified brown-green eyes, true recognition of all that Rimmer was. It lasted but a second, however, and then the pallor gave way to a vibrant red. "I knew it!!" He yelled, pointing a shaking finger. "I knew you were just a big gay fraud! You're worse than Lister! At least he has the decency to be ashamed of what we're doing!"

An unexpected chill poked at Rimmer's spine. "Really?" he asked, despite himself.

"Oh, yes!" The younger Rimmer grinned, maliciously. "Every time we go at it, he gets this faraway look in his eyes, like he's trying to pretend I'm someone else. And when we're done, and he comes to, and realizes what he's done, he gives me this _look_ that you wouldn't believe."

Rimmer could and did believe. He'd seen that look on Lister's face after the victory at Wax World, and that had been bad enough; almost as bad going through his digestive system afterwards. But to have that look directed not at what you had done, but at who you were, as a person… He elbowed his younger self out of the way, stomping angrily off, but what use was it? No matter where he went, he'd still be himself.

 

* * *

 

"Hey, man…"

Halfway into the cockpit, Rimmer lowered his shoulders, too tired to even sigh. "What?" He asked, not bothering to turn around.

"I just wanted to say... I just wanted to tell ya..."

"That I misunderstood, and that you're not gay," Rimmer interjected, flatly. "Don't worry, your secret's safe with me." Lister's voice stilled for a few surprised moments, and Rimmer, thinking he was in the clear, started to climb further into the ship. Then:

"That's not what I meant." Lister's voice was quiet and small enough that Rimmer turned around out of sheer astonishment. The smegger sounded entirely different when he wasn't shouting or leering.

"What did you mean, then?"

"Him and me; it doesn't mean anything."

Rimmer snorted. "So I've come to understand."

"No, really." Lister took a few, careful steps towards the ship, and Rimmer found himself retreating into the relative safety of the cockpit out of instinct. There was no escaping those eyes though, and Rimmer, defenseless and un-Aced, allowed himself to be transfixed. "I just… I just wanted to see you. Make sure that it was really you, like."

"Of course it's really me," Rimmer snapped. At least, with Lister, he didn't have to pretend. That was more of a relief that he'd like to admit. "Who else would it be?"

"Well," Lister hesitated, "you might have…"

"I might have been permanently damaged, yes," Rimmer finished for him, simply. _Didn't think of that, did you, when you threw me out to the space-wolves._ "And I will, soon enough, don't worry."

"Don't be like that, man! It's been ages since I've seen ya - can't we just talk?"

 _Offended._ The little bastard had the audacity to look offended. "Lister. It's late. I haven't slept for a fortnight. The last time I did, it was inside the hollowed-out carcass of a whale-GELF that was still in its death-throes. Since you forced me into this ridiculous outfit, I've seen humanoid GELF children torn apart by Aganoids for fun; I've traversed entire planetoids made out of corrosive mucus; I've seen my own guts when my body gets shot, or exploded, or ripped into pieces so quickly that my bee can't keep up with the repairs. I've been sexually propositioned by things that looked like sentient hairballs, and believe you me, they don't always take no for an answer. And yes; rather often, I've rescued some pretty young thing and rutted the night away with them. Sometimes their parents don't even try to kill me the next morning. Sometimes, people buy me drinks. Sometimes, they call me a hero. And that, Listy, is my death right now, though I suppose you'd call it a life. Anything else you'd like to talk about, or can I get some rest, now?"

Dumbly, Lister nodded.

Rimmer closed the Wildfire's hatch, and ignored the sound of heavy footsteps as they echoed away.

 

* * *

 

His tiny cot in the Wildfire's bosom was dark, damp and familiar. Rimmer pulled the thin blanket around himself, and tried not to think of anything in particular. His brain wouldn't let him. Images of Kochanski and Lister, of Lister and the other Rimmer, of everyone, all looking to him for something he couldn't give, all ran together in his mind until they became one huge, colorless blob.

Sighing heavily, Rimmer turned in the darkness. Life as Ace wasn't quite so bleak as he'd made it sound to Lister, but Rimmer had never really understood the appeal. _Yes_ , you got treated as a hero, and _yes_ , there was plenty of ass to be had (though it helped if you had an open mind when it came to looks and genitalia), but none of it was really for _you_. Ace was a role; a character you played; a mask you could never, ever take off. And, Rimmer realized with annoyance, that was what had lured him here, wasn't it? With _Lister_ , he didn't have to pretend. He could be himself, every twatted inch of himself, as much as he liked. After years of posing as a flight suited hero, it was an alluring thought indeed. No matter what other diffuse hopes he might have had with regards to Lister and himself, that one had been the cincher. That one he _knew_ to be true. And now?

The metal frame creaked as Rimmer shifted. He didn't even have the option of exposing his true identity and asking to stay, now. He'd tried living with himself before, and that had ended well, hadn't it? No, his only option was to cut his losses, leave, and try his best to forget this twice-smegged lander even existed. Which, given the state of it, wasn't much of a stretch.

Groaning, Rimmer pulled the blanket up over his face. Leaving wasn't an option either. Ace-ethics aside, he was disgusted to find he didn't have it in him to leave Li… the crew to rot on a crate that wasn't likely to make it to next month, much less any planet capable of supporting human life. He would have to save them. Terrific. Not only would he not get anything out of this little adventure, but everyone else would end up pleased as punch. That hardly seemed fair. If Rimmer couldn't be happy, he would at least prefer for the misery to be spread around a little. He shook his head, willing the annoyance away, and turned his mind to the distracting problem of how he was going to help them. There were several options. He could let Blue Midget piggy-back along to their original dimension; that sort of thing had been done before, his uplink assured him. The Wildfire's repair-nanos were better than Kryten's megalomaniacal pests, so they could easily…

Rimmer bolted upright, banging his head on the low, sloped ceiling. He didn't care; this idea was _pure genius!_ So, Lister thought he wanted Kochanski, did he? Well, he'd soon find out what that was really like. It wouldn't take much to nudge her into Lister's arms; what Rimmer had planned would be more than sufficient. And Lister shacking up with Kochanski would both inconvenience his other self _and_ frustrate that annoying bog-bot! He let out a subdued yell of triumph, just as the sound of the ship's hatch opening registered at the edge of his hearing.

Ace-instincts kicking in, Rimmer tensed, flattening against the cot so he could sneak an arm underneath the mattress, fumbling for the blaster he had hidden there. There! He had a grip on it; now all he had to do was – two iridescent irises, predatory and eager, glittered at him in the dark. A sleek, naked body had been draped across his, vibrating with the purring sound eminating from its chest.

"Glargh!" Rimmer yelled, pulling out the blaster, pushing it in the creature's face. Too late, he realized two things; this was not some renegade GELF assassin, and two, that brown, oblong object was _not_ his blaster.

"Hey, Buddy," the Cat purred, "I see you're ready for me."

" _GET OUT!!!_ "

 

* * *

 

As Blue Midget flew reverently into the giant ship's docking bay, even Rimmer had to admit he was impressed. The viewscreens in the lander's cockpit seemed too small to take it all in, and the others, jostling for position amongst themselves, apparently agreed. The moment they touched down, a mad scramble for the exit ensued; Rimmer was surprised to see Kochanski winning the race, practically sprinting down the steps and onto Red Dwarf's familiar deck.

"Oh my god," she shouted, dropping to her knees to feel the solid metal. "Oh my _god!_ We're _here_. We're actually here!"

Rimmer watched from the doorway as Lister followed, swooping her up in a jubilant embrace. She hardly seemed to mind, whooping and laughing right along with him. "Did she just peck him on the cheek?" the other Rimmer asked, looking over Rimmer's shoulder. Rimmer rolled his eyes. Ignoring both of them, Cat slithered past, sniffing the air suspiciously. He stalked away slowly, disappearing behind crates that were clearly in need of investigating.

"It worked," Lister grinned, "it actually worked!"

"I know!" Kochanski's hands were still around Lister, lingering at his waist. "Ace told me how it was all your idea."

"It was? I mean," Lister added hastily, catching up sooner than Rimmer had expected, "he did?"

"It was brilliant; how you figured out that Red Dwarf would be fully destroyed by now, and that all we needed was a way to get there, and a means of reconstructing it." She smiled, letting her hands rise to the back of Lister's neck. "Lucky for us Ace could provide both."

"Yeah," Lister mumbled, "lucky, that."

"But you were the one to point it all out to him." She looked down, almost shyly. Behind him, Rimmer could hear his other self dry-retching. "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I've misjudged you horribly."

Lister brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. Space, it was revolting. Rimmer forced himself to keep looking, his ears on stalks. "Nah. I'm pretty much hopeless, me."

Enough. Just watching their cheerful little faces and the eyes they were making at one another was more than enough. Satisfied, if that was the word, Rimmer watched them stroll away arm in arm, then walked out of the ship himself. He watched with disinterested amusement as Kryten hobbled off in confused pursuit of the happy couple. Job well done. The slob got the girl. Everything back in order. He moved a few of the cargo crates a quarter of an inch to the left, brushed a speck of imaginary dust from his flight suit lapels, and started walking back towards the lander.

His other self still stood in the doorway, blocking his access.

"Smegging hell, not again," Rimmer mumbled.

"And where do you suppose you're going?"

"Get lost, gazpacho-breath."

"Off to be a hero again, is it? Just fly off and dock with your fancy ship, and dimension jump the smeg out of here?"

"What's it to you?"

The other Rimmer grabbed his jacket, shouting in his face. " _Take me with you!!_ "

For a moment, Rimmer was too stunned to push him away. But only for a moment. A violent shove sent his other self flying backwards into a particularly pointy console. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. There's only ever one Ace."

Sprawled across the console, the other Rimmer glared. "Make an exception."

"Why should I?"

"This is all your fault," the other Rimmer spat, waving his arms in the general direction of newly enamored Listers and Kochanskis. "It wasn't much, but at least I could pretend I had some human affection now and then. Now that he's got _her_ , he's not just going to ignore me, he'll try to get rid of me so that she'll never know anything ever happened. One day I'll be walking along the corridor, then *BANG* - into the airlock and bye-bye Rimsey!"

Rimmer looked at the hysterically wailing man with a mixture of pity and disgust. Was he ever really _that_ pathetic? (Had he ever improved?) "Don't be ridiculous. Now get out; I've got a date with another dimension. Preferably one as far away from this one as possible."

" _No_. I won't let you. You have to take me! It's not fair that you should get to be a hero while I'm stuck here with curry-breath and Wagner-woman in their little love-nest! I want to rescue princesses and have orgies in Jacuzzis!"

"Let go of the flight controls, you pathetic git! There's no possible way for me to take you; the Wildfire barely has room enough for one."

Just as he managed to pry his other self's hand from the steering wheel, Rimmer felt something inside himself go 'click'. The pain didn't even register until much later – even as he looked down and saw the knife stuck into his side, all he felt was a sickening sense of defeat. "That's just room enough, then," his other self whispered.

The world flickered, like the turning off of a screen.

 

* * *

 

The world stabilized.

Rimmer was lying on the landing bay deck. His entire body was aching, but his bee felt fine. Legion knew his stuff; the self-repair routines were impressive. Not flawless, as the destruction of countless other Aces had shown, but rather close to. He was naked, he found, which felt rather ridiculous. His Ace-clothes were real, more for practical reasons than anything else; lovers often got confused when garments disappeared of their own volition. He couldn't remember anyone removing them recently though… _Smeg_ , he thought, as memories started flooding back. His other self; the knife; the Wildfire!

Scrambling to his feet, he patted himself down for injuries. None. That was a good sign; it meant the bee had not been significantly damaged. When it was, his physical appearance took longer to 'heal'. Rimmer closed his eyes, running through the self-diagnostic the Wildfire's computer had thought him. The program whirred through his electronic systems, reporting no errors. Good. Now, what else should he do? Automatically, he reached out through the bee's uplink… and found silence. Less than silence; nothing. A void; an absence.

" _Smegging hell_ " he croaked. Gone. The Wildfire was gone. And if his ears were not deceiving him, that would be Lister and the rest of the Hardy Boys plus Nancy Drew, off to see what the trouble was. They must have seen the Wildfire take off, and knew Ace wouldn't have left without saying goodbye. Well, there was a first time for everything.

The footsteps were getting closer now. He had to think fast. There was an obvious solution - tell all. Would they even believe him? And if they did, what a glorious return that would be; old Rimsey, unable to hack it as a hero. Couldn't even protect his own ship. All that, and a deathtime of Lister and Kochanski's dysfunction to look forward to? There had to be an alternative. Something at least marginally less depressing… there was Lister's voice, agitated. Just seconds now.

Hating himself possibly more than ever, Rimmer concentrated, and made the necessary changes.

 

* * *

 

"So yer foot got caught in the landing gear, and ye fell and broke yer spine?"

Rimmer grit his teeth. "For the last smegging time, _yes_."

"I always said he was spineless."

"Shut it, Cat. We're trying to work out what happened."

"I told you. I slipped. I fell. I died. Ace got a hard light bee, and brought me back to death. Hey presto. All cheer."

Lister looked at him suspiciously. It would take some time to convince him of this ridiculous story, Rimmer knew, but in the end, suspicion was better than pity. He had only himself to blame for his current situation – literally. Perhaps that was as it should be.

After all, who else but Arnold Judas Rimmer would lose out to himself?

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this story, and you like Red Dwarf slash, check out [The Red Dwarf Slash community on Livejournal](http://community.livejournal.com/reddwarfslash/) \- home of excellent RD writers!


End file.
